


Under the Moons of Darillium: Part 11 Haunted Hallways

by Stardance1



Series: Under the Moons of Darillium: A Night of Adventures [11]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005), Doctor Who (Big Finish Audio), The Diary of River Song (Big Finish Audio)
Genre: F/M, Post-Episode: 2015 Xmas The Husbands of River Song
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-14
Updated: 2018-12-14
Packaged: 2019-09-18 09:31:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16992465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stardance1/pseuds/Stardance1
Summary: It’s holiday break, and River, the Doctor, and Nardole have set off on one of River’s Darillium research adventures. They are investigating suspicious tales from deep inside a nautically themed manor. But as haunted as the manor and the surrounding forest and bog seem, nothing is as haunted as River. Will she succumb to the ghostly screams that lead back, deep under the city streets, or will she and the Doctor find a way to help free the trapped voices that call for their help?





	Under the Moons of Darillium: Part 11 Haunted Hallways

**Author's Note:**

> Please note that this is Part 11 of a Series.

River stood in the Tardis kitchen, her hair pulled back, pinned into a massive chignon above the nape of her neck. In the light, the thousand tiny curls that broke free created a translucent halo framing her face. As she rolled out the semolina dough, and the Doctor stood by stirring ingredients into the ravioli filling, she’d look up into his face and smiled.  
Each time it would take his breath away.  
They were cooking together in the kitchen, reminiscing about the past, humming along to the lilting cadence of the lute music playing on the speakers overhead. River had finished her teaching seminars, and her students wouldn’t return to class until after the Christmas holidays, so they were planning River’s research projects for the break, and the different things they would do to celebrate their first year anniversary on Darillium.  
River was making a mental list of activities to do. Christmas was still a thousand hours away, and she had a million plans: shopping, restaurants, ice skating.  
“There’s only one thing that I want to make sure that we do,” the Doctor interjected.  
River paused and looked up at him expectantly. He continued, “I’d like for us to go carol singing.”  
“What!” River said bursting forth with incredulous laughter.  
“And I’d like to wear festive antlers while we do it. It's something I owe the Tardis I think...”  
River’s mouth was agape, but she regained her composure and grinned. “Then I will wear antlers too!” she amended.  
The Doctor reached across the kitchen island and bopped her nose with a dollop of the ricotta mixture.  
He was fully expecting to get a face full of flour in retaliation, but instead River just brushed her finger on the rim of her nose and licked it. The Doctor inwardly groaned, she could make tying shoelaces seductive…  
She leaned forward toward him and whispered, “Add a little salt.”  
His hearts flip flopped.  
He swallowed and then with a twinkle in his eye, he bowed. “As you command my lady.” He went around the kitchen island and took her in his arms for a slow swaying dance. “Even if I had given you everything and had naught but a falcon left, he’d be yours.”  
“My gallant knight, you don’t have to quote The Decameron to me when we served as inspiration for bits of it.”  
“Just the naughty bits! And that was your fault for always being so loud.”  
River actually blushed in his arms and laughed, breaking free to go back to her dough while the Doctor leaned on the Island and watched her.  
“We had so much fun bouncing around Italy every hundred years or so. Why did we ever stop?”  
“We only had to leave the Quattrocento after you broke Federico da Montefeltro’s nose!”  
“He made a pass at me! And, it vastly improved his profile in the end!” River retorted, slamming the dough into counter and covering it with a cloth to rest. “Which still doesn’t explain why you didn’t meet up with me at the next hundred year interval, in the Castelfanco Emilia!”  
The Doctor suddenly became very interested in his own hands, slowly folding his fingers together and then rubbing his palm with his thumb. “I did come.”  
“What?!?”  
“I came and was served a large bowl of tortellini.”  
River groaned, tilting her head back and covering her own ears in exasperation. “I am not having this argument again. IT WAS NOT MY NAVEL!”  
The Doctor turned and faced her, “Oh come on River, you suddenly arrive in Northern Italy and a chef who couldn’t so much as boil water before, is suddenly inspired to make a new kind of pasta in the shape of a beautiful woman’s navel, and you expect me to believe it wasn’t yours? I’VE SEEN YOUR NAVEL, it’s exactly like that.”  
River covered her eyes with her hands and then took a deep breath. She reached out and took the Doctor’s hands in her own. “Even if it were my navel, the legend is that he looked in through a keyhole and saw it. I swear I had nothing to do with him.”  
The Doctor felt his shoulders relax. He nodded slowly. Letting her words sink in. Believing her of course. But before she turned away, he tightened hold of her hands. “What about The Birth of Venus.”  
River smiled, “As I’ve said before, I was NOT the model for Venus.”  
“I know you modeled in that painting River.”  
River sighed and looked down at her feet. “I was meant to be Venus, but Botticelli kept hitting on me and after rebuking his advances, he moved me to the left as the flower nymph Chloris. He completely butchered my feet in the painting, making my toes look positively deformed, which is why I hate the painting, and hate talking about it.”  
The Doctor laughed gleefully, picking her up and spinning her around.  
River looked up at him. He looked like a thousand years of angst had vanished from the corner of his eyes.  
River took her fisted floury hands and shoved them playfully into his chest. “Are you saying that we haven’t eaten tortellini in 100 years…”  
“More than that for me actually.”  
“…because you were jealous that they were made in honor of my naval?”  
“I couldn’t even look at them.”  
River laughed, but the Doctor just reached out his arms and hugged her to him. Then he picked her up and carried her off to their bed, professing a need to closely examen both her naval and her toes in more detail.  
For the next hour you could hear River’s happy shrieks from all over the Tardis, since at one point she’d escaped his grasp and the Doctor had had to give chase. They’d ended up back in bed, snuggled together under the covers while the Doctor played lazily with one of her curls.  
Suddenly she turned around and climbed on top of him, straddling him and pinning his shoulders down with a very somber look in her eyes.  
“Be honest. When you came in the 1500s and found out about the tortellini…”  
“And that song Willaert wrote for you - Sempre mi ride sta.”  
“… ok and that song about me laughing in his face…The next time that I saw you was when you were living with otters for a month and not speaking to me… Is that why?”  
A deep scarlet rouged the Doctor’s cheeks. He nodded admitting his own stupid culpability. “I’m sorry that I lost my temper.”  
In response, River moved her hips and re-straddled more thoroughly, and then leaned down to kiss him.  
When she was done having her way with him, she stretched languidly and then rested her head on his shoulder.  
He brushed a kiss to her to temple.  
“You know when I was with the otters, I knew each time you had come to check on me to be sure that I had food and was safe.”  
River nodded, now a little sleepily.  
The Doctor continued…”But we had fun didn’t we River, bouncing around the Earth and the Universe.”  
“Always,” she said with a yawn.  
“What was your favorite time on Earth?”  
“I don’t know, maybe riding around Scotland with you, or that time we spent on Mont Saint Michel….”  
The Doctor agreed with a “Hmmm,” and smiled gently.  
River continued…”But do you know my favorite time with you wasn’t on Earth.” She yawned again.  
“No?”  
“MmmMmm.” she added more asleep than awake. “It was that time we went to the planet Dambri.”  
“The waterfall planet?”  
“Yes,” River answered wistfully.  
“But we didn’t do anything. We swam in the waterfalls. We played cards. We didn’t meet anyone or do anything significant. Just hung out for the summer.”  
“It was the best summer of my life.” River whispered, her eyes now fully closed.  
“You know,” he whispered back to her, “it’s just the negative ions from the falling water that give off a sense of euphoria.”  
The corners of River’s sleeping lips curled, “It wasn’t the negative ions. It was you... You were the adventure.”  
And with that she let herself drift off into sleep. The smiling Doctor held her for a while, then got up to finish the ravioli and set the table.  
She’d wake up and they’d have dinner.  
He started looking for some playing cards so he could challenge her to a game of Rummy 5000 after their meal.  
She’d like that, he thought with a smile.  
And so would he. 

_____________________

Dinner, hours of fun with cards and then more without, and then a restful sleep, all passed before a late breakfast. The Doctor sipped on a mug of strong chicory coffee and dusted fallen confectioners sugar from his shirt . “So what is our next adventure, Professor Malone?” he asked while taking an enormous bite out of his fresh beignet.  
River frowned and then laughed at the cloud of powdered sugar that continued to fall from his still warm pastry.  
“Probably just a boring research trip….” she said, leaning forward to brush the white sugar from his top lip with her thumb. "Nardole will be here soon and then we can all be on our way.”  
“What are we investigating?”  
“Just a local legend. An old Manor house in the opposite outskirt of the city. Actually it’s in a deep valley and said to be surrounded by a haunted bog.”  
“Sounds foolish.”  
“Well, I don’t agree, but that is not why we’re going…"  
“Oh?”  
“Shall I tell you?” she asked excitedly, holding her Darillium diary to her chest.  
“Please.” he responded with a small smile.  
“I’d like to see the forest and bog of course, but there’s something about the manor house itself. The videos that I’ve seen online and that my students have shown me, reveal an eerie glow. And I can hear something, maybe mechanical or maybe voices calling out….”  
“That sounds more ominous than fun.”  
River shrugged one shoulder and smirked at the Doctor, “Anything can be fun.”  
He raised his eyebrows at her, then leaned forward and blew the sugar off of her beignet as she took a bite. River’s face, her hair and clothes, were instantly coated in sugar.  
She looked up at him, absolutely horrified.  
“That was fun.” he said winking at her, and then taking the remaining piece of beignet out of her hands and putting it, in its entirety, into his mouth. He chewed happily and said, “these are really delicious by the way, you did an amazing job.”  
River smiled at him. Calmly she reached forward and procured another beignet for herself, bringing it to her lips, then just before taking her first bite, she blew its sugary top at him. 

A little later, when Nardole walked into the Tardis, he found them both collapsed on the floor of the kitchen, and out of breath from laughter, all around a powdery haze of sweetness. Nardole sneezed and both River and the Doctor looked up.  
“Bless you!” they said in unison, before the Doctor scurried up and River much more slowly followed. They went off to change before setting off on their adventure.  
Nardole sighed, not at all surprised by the goings on here.  
He served himself a cup of coffee, picked up a beignet from a now haphazard pile and took a knowing bite, fully expecting to wait an hour before they reemerged.  
_____________________ 

The Tardis couldn’t take them all the way through the forest, because the exact location of the manor house was unknown. But she settled down in the valley, in a small rocky clearing, surrounded by thickets of forest in every direction.  
River stepped out first, and began to walk slowly toward the east, pulled as though from an innate sensibility. The Doctor followed closely behind, trying to push the overgrowth out of her way. And Nardole brought up the rear.  
Under the moonless Darillium sky, the air was thick with fog, each step forward more tenebrous than the past.  
The ground was covered in tangles of thorned vines and branches. The leafless tree trunks rose from the ground, twisted and contorted, the surface of their bark blistered with knobs. Cascades of phantasmic mixtures of moss and ivy cascaded from the tallest branches and swayed like the tattered sails of misfortune in the wind.  
“Well this place is really romantic,” the Doctor said half-jokingly. His boot then caught on a vine, and he half missed the step forward.  
River turned, took his hand in hers, and held on to it as she continued.  
Only he couldn’t really tell if it was for his benefit or for her own comfort.  
And it left him disconcerted, but silently he continued to follow.  
10 minutes passed, then 15 more, and another 10.  
The Doctor was about to protest that they should really stop and scan the area; or try to find other clues as to their location, when suddenly, as though by magic, a large stone manor house appeared before them in the next clearing. 

It stood forbiddingly seven stories high, but the deep etched grooves in the stone, like vertical claw marks, made it appear even taller. Its highest rooms were crowned with square turrets, and a more profound darkness than that of the night seeped from the many windows.  
The Doctor excitedly took River by the shoulders and turned her to face him.  
“You did it River, you found it!” he exclaimed.  
But River’s face had turned ashen in the night.  
She collapsed against his chest, her face nested gently into his neck. He could feel the shallowness of her warm breath against his skin; and her eyelids fluttered as though in a deep sleep, her long eyelashes brushing against the Doctor’s chin.  
“Nardole!” the Doctor cried out. “Run ahead and open the door. Break it down if you have to! We have to get her in out of this cold!” 

Nardole did as he was bid. His thick mechanical leg easily pushing the old creaky door open.  
He entered the dank great room and found a golden gas lamp on a wooden side table. Luckily having just come from his shift at Alphonse’s, he was well prepared with matches.  
The light caught and began to glow outward. Nardole could see that there was a second lamp and he turned to light it before shaking out the stubbed match stick.  
The lamps were beautiful and heirloom quality; a pebbled-crystal basin adorned each one, and twin golden handles extended gracefully from the base in the shape of curved fish. The tails and fins were spread in a magnificent art nouveau motif and each scale had been delicately carved. 

Nardole turned, a lamp in each hand, in time to see the Doctor placing River gently on an old wooden-framed sofa. The Doctor stoop up over her and took off his own coat, laying it across her body. Kneeling beside her, he brushed hair away from her face with his hands and leaned in to whisper into her ear.  
But Nardole could not hear what he said.  
He walked over and handed a lantern to the Doctor.  
The Doctor thanked him and continued to tend to the unconscious River.  
The Doctor pressed his forehead to hers, but River twisted in agony and groaned.  
“Doctor?” Nardole inquired, not able to form the sentence.  
The Doctor gravely looked up at him and answered, “She’s pushing me out; putting up walls. She won’t let me connect to her mind.”  
“Why?” Nardole inquired.  
The Doctor began to respond that he didn’t know, when suddenly River captured their attention with a deep purposeful breath.  
They both turned their gaze expectantly to her… 

__________________________ 

River was being torn apart internally.  
She could feel the anguish of a thousand souls splitting her mind, feeding on each word, grasping at each thought.  
She could feel the Doctor holding her hand, she could feel his head press against hers, but she desperately pushed him out.  
With every will and effort in her body she ripped her eyelids open.  
She looked at the Doctor and gasped out, “Please, they need you. You have to go on.”  
The Doctor squeezed her hand, “River, River please. What’s going on. What do you feel.”  
Her eyes closed again. “Not just feel; hear. My head is filled with a thousand voices.”  
He clung to her hands, “What do they want, share them with me.”  
With a meager shake of her head she declined, and whispered back, “They want air. Freedom. Sky.” Her eyes burst open again and she focused on his face. “They need the stars. Help them, they need to see the stars.”  
Her head weakly lolled back and then leaned to one side, reclining gently on the backrest of the sofa.  
She kept whispering. “Go Doctor, they are below us, find the tunnels that lead to the city and the bog.”  
The Doctor took her face in both of his hands.  
"River, you’re going to be fine.”  
She smiled, he was trying to convince himself more than he was trying to convince her.  
She knew.  
“It doesn’t matter,” she responded. “What matters is that you go on Doctor. Help them. For me.”  
He leaned down and placed a kiss on her nose.  
She moaned slightly in approval.  
He leaned down and whispered closely in her ear, “You know in the Piano Man, when Billy Joel sings 'we're all in the mood for a Melody?’" He bops her nose gently and his voice catches in his throat, “he had to have been talking about you.”  
She sighed out a long breath. 

Nardole stood nervously behind, observing the scene unfold. “Doctor, I don’t think that she’s breathing.”  
"She’s fine,” the Doctor responded angrily, standing up to face Nardole, “Timelords can slip into a coma to heal their own bodies. I’ll find what’s troubling her, and set it right, and then she’ll regain consciousness.”  
Nardole would have been comforted if only the Doctor looked at all convinced himself.  
But instead he looked petrified.  
And so Nardole was also petrified.  
The Doctor took a step toward Nardole and placed his arm suppliantly on Nardole’s arm. “Stand guard next to her. I will go down into the basements and subbasements of this house in search of the tunnels that she spoke of. But you, you have to protect her.”  
Nardole nodded, and took his place next to the sofa. 

________________________ 

The Doctor took one of the strange nautically themed gas lanterns, and began his descent.  
He ran down flights of stairs, until the air thickened with moisture and then he followed the heavy scent of clay dirt through the darkness.  
Down a long winding hallway he found a massive metal vault door, firmly locked with a spoke wheel handle.  
Pulling his Sonic Screwdriver from his back trouser's pocket, he aimed it at the closure.  
It sparked and spun open in response. 

The Doctor walked forward, into what seemed like an underground railway terminus station, with long tunnels of curved ceilings and curved walls, reminiscent of long, white, Parisian Metro stations. The individual tunnels converged in front of him and he could hear the steady rush of water as it pooled below. The excess draining through a rusty metal grate laden with malice, preventing anything but water from flowing outward.  
A silvery glint shone in the corner of his vision, and he raised his lantern toward the furthest tunnel at his right. 

____________________

There below the Doctor, at the mouth of the embankment, swam a beautiful Darillium creature.  
The light from the lantern shone down on her and the Doctor could tell that her delicate skin was a translucent rainbow of colors, ranging in shades of blue, green, and purple. Her head was crowned with six long horn like gills, that were each covered in thin pale pink bristles, like a fine feathered hat.  
Her face was the same light translucent shade, but also covered in freckles, the skin around her piecing black eyes encircled by a bright cerulean blue shade.  
Her eyes flashed with determination and anger as she looked up at the Doctor.  
The Doctor knew that expression well. It was universal.  
She swam closer to where he stood, perilously close to the current caused by the suction of the grate. It would have raised alarm in any creature, but her physical strength and resolve were evident in every ripple of her musculature.  
She spoke first, her chin jutting into the air rebelliously. “Hello, Doctor.”  
“How do you know me, and how do you know my wife.”  
She laughed and swam a bit back, sure now that she had his attention. As she swam back he could see that she was flanked by hundreds more behind her, and an even greater diversity of creatures were emerging from the other tunnels: finned and beautifully colored creatures, some with intricate patterns on their skin.  
“We only know her mind, Doctor. She can’t stop thinking about you even as she tries to conceal you from us.”  
Now the Doctor’s eyes flashed in anger.  
“You leave her alone, take me instead.”  
She laughed. “You mistake us Doctor. We haven’t attacked her. Her mind has connected with ours. She hears my people, the Cuico Siredon and our songs of sorrow. It infiltrates her mind and her heart because she’s also known pain. She’s known the sorrow and loneliness of being locked away. She’s know what it is to be separated from her heart.”  
“Why do your people sing this song.”  
“We are imprisoned in these tunnels. Your wife, she’s been imprisoned too. Have you been her jailor?”  
“No.” But he didn’t know how honest that was… “You’re killing her. You know that. Break the connection to her mind and I’ll do whatever I can for you. You have my word.”  
“We will release her when you release us!”  
“Alright! Tell me, how is it that you’ve come to be captured, how can I help free you?” 

___________________ 

The creature positioned herself further back until her people swam at her sides. She made it clear that she spoke for them.  
“My name is Tonantzin. I am a leader among my people.  
But it isn’t just the Cuico Siredon that were captured, it is all of us who lived in the streams, creeks and wetlands.  
During the times of light our peoples lived and sang and spawned. We took care of the waterways, we maintained the plants and the rocks. We sang to the birds and to the rain in the clouds and the creatures in the trees.  
But when night came, we would hibernate. We would lay under the moons of Darillium, knowing the stars would teach our children as they dreamt in their nursery nests.  
The last night, while we slept, our waters were covered in cement, buried and erased.  
Now, we are trapped. We swim deep below, imprisoned in metal tubes without the sun. Without its warmth the water has remained cold, the fish and the amphibians cannot spawn or escape. Our children have died of hunger. And above us, we can feel the trees and the plants and the flowers in mourning, blighted without our care.  
It is night now above ground, but we can not go into hibernation without the air and the sky. Both our day and our night have been stolen, and we live in eternal darkness.”  
To illustrate their pain, the creatures shrieked and splashed and writhed, banging on their metal cage. 

Then, a woman’s scream can be heard over the commotion.  
River.  
The communal pain of the Cuico Siredon must have stirred her. 

Floors above the Doctor, Nardole is coaxing River to lie back down. He is trying to keep her warm with the Doctor’s coat, even as she has broken out into a cold sweat. Other than the scream she has only moaned and twisted in pain.  
But before she closes her eyes, she rests her hands on her hearts, and her lips move as though in a chant or a litany.  
Nardole hears nothing, but feels the weight of her words as they pass through him. 

Deep below, River’s voice reaches the Doctor’s ear, carried in on her breath.  
Many, but not all in the water turn in confusion, looking at each other and touching their ears in wonder. 

The Doctor can feel the sudden wetness on his face. He can taste the saltiness of his own tears.  
He turns to address Tonantzin, “You didn’t hear that, did you?”  
Tonantzin looks around and then shakes her head.  
“That was my wife. She has told me something with only word. She has told me everything that I need to know in fact. She is wonderful like that. She has told me to keep fighting for you. She has shown me that many of your people and your children have pure hearts that beat with kindness.”  
“She said all of this with one word?”  
The Doctor smiled sadly, “She said my name. It’s probably curious to you Tonantzin, that hearing my own name spoken would be significant. But you see, there was one more message hidden in there. She wanted to remind me that I can still hear it spoken. That my own heart and the stars still allow me to hear it, because it is still my charge to do what is right….  
Even if she dies and I lose my light, I have to fight to get you out of the darkness.” 

__________________ 

The Doctor hurriedly climbed the stairs by two and three steps at a time.  
He tried to keep breathing, but in the end switching to his bypass was easier.  
Before going through the last door, leading into the main living area, he leaned against the frame and gulped in air. He was afraid to see River, afraid to look in her face and see more pain.  
But he had to check on her.  
He strode in and looked first at Nardole.  
“How is she?”  
“Still weak Doctor,” he answered.  
The Doctor knelt next to the sofa and laid his cheek next to hers.  
Her face was cold and her eyes were unresponsive, but somehow he still felt like her skin leapt toward his touch.  
He whispered in her ears.  
“Thank you, for saying my name. I’ll fix this. And then I’ll get you better. I promise.”  
He tugged gently on her earlobe and placed a kiss on her lips.  
Then he stood up.  
“Did you find anything in here Nardole? Any clues as to why the tunnels would lead to this house?”  
“Yes Doctor, it’s not really a home. It is a sort of old bridge house. It belonged to the local National Trust. There’s some paperwork there, on the table next to the lantern, and I believe the next room is a library.”  
“Thank you Nardole. I’ll look at the papers and try the library. 

______________________ 

The library was a cold, dark wooden room, filled to the ceiling with bookcases of ledgers and bound science journals and schematics.  
The Doctor pulled them out by the handful and skimmed through, growing more and more horrified by the recent history that they revealed.  
Outside the room he could hear Nardole pacing and then suddenly running to the door.  
He looked up.  
“Doctor! A man just ran out the door, he ran toward the back, toward the bog!”  
“You stay here Nardole. Don’t leave River’s side!”  
The Doctor grabbed his lantern and ran into the cold misty night. 

__________________________  
The Doctor could see his breath as he ran toward the bog.  
The humidity in the air was tangible, and he could almost taste the peat.  
There was defining silence in the air, where he could only hear the sound of his breath, his footsteps, and the racing of his own hearts. 

In the distance, through the bog, he could see far off orbs of golden light fire up and then quickly extinguish.  
He shook his head and mumbled under his breath, “ignis fatuus”. He wouldn’t be deceived by false fires and wisps.  
He crouched down with his lantern and observed the ground.  
The Doctor knew that a thin oily sheen would cover the marshy pools of water that had not been disturbed. There were bands of color over all of the water that he could see, except those going toward the northeast. 

The Doctor made haste, running towards shadows, falling sometimes knee deep into mud, but trekking on…  
Knowing that he had precious little time to get River back to the Tardis before it was too late…  
Then he stilled.  
He quieted his breath and listened, hoping for a clue.  
Ahead of him to his left, a rustle of nearby branches caught his attention.  
He picked up his legs through the swampy waters and ran.  
The Doctor saw him then, an older man. Human. With gray hair and a beard, his face worn and weathered by lines like the waves of the sea. He wore the slick dark overcoat of a fisherman, with a low rimmed cap to protect his neck from the rain. He wore bog shoes and carried a giant spear or a whaling harpoon in his hands, ready to take aim.  
The Doctor’s eyes glistened over with anger.  
He took out his Sonic Screwdriver and pointed it at the spear, ripping it from the villains hands.  
“I’ve been looking for you,” he said.  
___________________________ 

The Doctor stood there, mist and condensation coating his face. His arm was extended, holding out his Screwdriver, intent on compelling this man before him to repentance.  
Or penance.  
Whatever the road would lead he was ready to take it there.  
And quickly. 

“What did you do to the Cuico Siredon, and the creatures of the streams, creeks and wetlands.”  
“I made them safe.”  
“For whom?”  
“The people of Darillium, obviously!”  
“So the stream creatures don’t count?”  
“My daughter, she was running and she fell into the water and drowned. She could swim like a fish, but there was rubbish at the bottom, metallic space junk, and a white tipped rod, it injured her and she died immediately. I made it my mission to protect the land dwellers from similar fates. I am a scientist, this made sense.”  
“I am sorry about your daughter. But this is not science.”  
“I am not a mad scientist. Science is about truth and progress!”  
The Doctor searched his face with his eyes. “You’re not a mad scientist. You’re just mad. Why was your daughter running?”  
“I don’t know what you mean.”  
“I saw her obituary in the library. Both of them. Her fiancé’s family published a different account. Your daughter didn’t die because she fell into a stream. She died because you were chasing her and she fell in.”  
“The people of Darillium supported my ideas, my research. They agreed to cover the streams.”  
"You sold your idea on lies. You promised new development, less flooding and danger, but the opposite is true. And then locals come here to this house looking for ghosts where their own city is haunted by the dying streams beneath their feet!”  
"No. This is about science. Science is about order! Science is about finding an end to chaos!"  
“No!” the Doctor screamed, "Science is about seeing the beauty and order in the chaos. You haven’t cured chaos, you’ve created it. You haven’t loved science, you’ve buried it. Just like you’ve buried the reports that show that streams reduce flooding, they purify the water and reduce pollution, they increase your biosphere with habitats for people and animals alike. You’ve left scars all over this planet with the claws of your excavators, turning life into burial plots with cement headstones. You need to learn that the Universe isn’t only built on what you can justify through mathematics and science. I’ve been all over this Universe. There is only one Universal language, and that is kindness. Without it, the Universe would collapse on itself.”  
The men stood there for a moment, face to face, eye to eye. time and pain evident on both of their features.  
The old man whispered, "How do I change it. How do I go on without her.”  
The Doctor’s hand trembled slightly at his side. It was a question he didn’t know that he could ever answer. "Through kindness, the Universe will show you a way. As for the streams. Leave that to me.” 

________________________ 

When the two men returned to the house, the Doctor sent Nardole on to the Tardis and then on to River’s University to secure help.  
He took the old man down to visit with the creatures in the streams and apologize.  
And to begin to make up for what he’d done.  
The creatures released their mental hold on River, but she remained comatose, waiting for her mind to recover.  
Once everything was under way, and a communal plan had been established to revitalize the streams and the creek beds, the Doctor bid farewell to the group.  
Tonantzin called out to him. “Thank you Doctor. Our peoples will soon hibernate, once we can sleep under the stars. I hope that we will see you once the day returns.”  
The Doctor smiled to her. “My wife and I may have to move on by then. But I hope so.”  
The Doctor left Nardole behind to help, and carried River into the Tardis to the Zero Room.  
There, in its soft pink light, he laid next to her.  
Ready to wait an eternity for her to waken.  
____________________________ 

Laying next to River, the Doctor whispered to her stories of every place that he would want to take her.  
A lifetime outside of time and all over space.  
He told her of the colors visible when a giant black hole creates a cosmic fountain of light.  
He told her of giant gas planets where they could swim through clouds.  
He told her about a billion galaxies that he wanted to discover with her.  
He told her that he wanted to hold her hand while the Tardis slid down Orion Falls.  
And when he looked over to place a gentle kiss on her cheek, he saw that her eyes were wide open.  
He rolled over happily, kneeling beside her and caressing her face with both of his hands.  
She kissed the back of his hand and smiled.  
“How long have you been awake?” he asked her.  
She grinned. “Almost the whole time.”  
“Why didn’t you stop me and tell me?”  
“Why would I, when I wanted to hear what you had to say?”  
He grinned back at her and kissed her.  
“So I missed all the fun?”  
“If by fun you mean, me covered in mud.”  
River grinned again, “You do look a bit worse for wear. Is everything alright? Did you free them?”  
The Doctor nodded. “I couldn’t have done it without you,” he said. “Nardole is helping a Doctor from the University, a Professor Riley…”  
“The fluvial geomorphologist?”  
“Yes.”  
“I like her.”  
“Nardole mentioned it. She was amazing…. It will take many days to restore the displaced plants and animals, but for now at least, bits of every stream have been opened to the stars.”  
River smiled softly, “And when the daylight comes, it will shine on them…. I hope we’ll get to see it.”  
“Me too,” the Doctor said. 

Then he carried her off to bed, where he showed her how many more cosmic experiences were within her grasp.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Look for more Doctor and River Song stories, every week! Next week: Part 12 - The Forests of Sadness!


End file.
